Unsheathed

This immortal ship wasn't going to travel directly to the Dragon Spring Prefecture. After all, with the departure of the Cloth Wrapper Shop from Ox Horn Mountain, the ferry station there had become completely abandoned. On paper, it was temporarily being used by the Great Li Empire's military, but it wasn't an important location, and barely any immortal ships passed through there.

The majority of the ones that did carried nobility from the Great Li Empire visiting the Dragon Spring Prefecture for sightseeing purposes. The Dragon Spring Prefecture was set for a resurgence, and there were also some rumors suggesting that it was going to be elevated from a prefecture to a province, which meant that around a dozen lofty official positions were going to appear in the Great Li Empire's officialdom.

With the Great Li Empire's military claiming half of the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent in such dominant fashion, the statuses of its native officials had been steadily rising. At the moment, the Great Li Empire's regional officials were the equivalent of capital officials from its subsidiary nations, and any such official that was sent to an official post in one of those subsidiary nations would automatically be promoted up a rank compared with their former official post.

The ship that Chen Ping'an was traveling aboard was going to be making a stop at the ferry station of a small nation called the Thousand Gorge Nation. The Thousand Gorge Nation was a rather barren nation that was home to many mountain ranges, and its people consisted of isolated settlements that were separated from one another by the nation's unforgiving terrain.

It was a peaceful nation that was yet to have been claimed by the Great Li Empire's mighty army, and its ferry station was overseen by the owner of the Cave of Blessings, who was also the Thousand Gorge Nation's imperial preceptor and the leader of the nation's immortals. However, the entire nation only had several dozen official immortals, and the imperial preceptor himself was only at the Dragon Gate Tier.

The only reason why he had an immortal ferry station to his name was because the Cave of Blessings was a fallen small world from ancient times, and it had several types of produce that could be sold to the south. However, the profit margins on these types of produce were far from impressive, so there were no foreign cultivators interested in taking over the Cave of Blessings.

Chen Ping'an's plan was to pay the Dragon Spring Prefecture a visit before traveling to the Colorful Garment Nation and the Water Combing Nation. There were many urgent matters that he had to personally attend to back home, such as the matter of purchasing mountains from the Great Li Empire's imperial court. Wei Bo could help in this regard, but he couldn't sign the title deeds with the Great Li Empire in Chen Ping'an's stead.

The journey proved to be quite a smooth one, with the exception of a minor incident. A group of immortals from Light Breeze City felt it demeaning that an ordinary horse was being kept in the stables on the bottom floor of the ship with their meticulously fed and trained spirit steeds, so they wanted to send a message to the horse's owner.

Of course, the methods that they employed were quite sneaky, but thankfully, Chen Ping'an took great care of his beloved steed, which he had named Qu Huang, and he often sent Fifteenth to check on Qu Huang to ensure its safety. Over the years, he had developed a very strong bond with this beloved steed, and he was extremely grateful to it.

Hence, as soon as Qu Huang was startled in the stables, Chen Ping'an immediately sensed it and sent out both First and Fifteenth. The pair of flying swords took on an insubstantial form, passing through the ship level by level to reach the bottom floor before stopping a powerful beast cold in its tracks, right as it was about to sink its fangs into Qu Huang.

Chen Ping'an then also made his way to the bottom floor of the ship to see what was happening, only to be stopped by the employee responsible for overseeing the stables. He immediately understood what was happening, and he grabbed the young man by the shoulder and dragged him to where Qu Huang was being kept.